Russia Again?

After months of endorsements and almost $1.4 billion spent on campaign expenditures, a Hillary Clinton victory in the 2016 election seemed like a sure thing. Donald Trump’s shocking triumph took the whole country by storm; immediately after results were announced, Democrats rushed to invalidate them. Cries of collusion with Russia deemed the victory as undermining to American democracy. Lacking in substance as well as relevance, claims of Russian election interference still plague the Trump administration almost a year later. Though recent investigations have recovered definitive ties between Russia and a campaign, it certainly wasn’t Trump’s.

American Majority CEO Ned Ryun, who extensively investigated claims of collusion, assured that "the same Russian lawyer who allegedly met with Trump’s son discovered that she [Clinton] was actually one of the unnamed sources for the Russian dossier." Clinton’s campaign (along with the DNC) essentially funded opposition research to be done by Fusion GPS, a foreign firm, and for it to be released as maliciously as possible in order to smear the Trump campaign. The organization is now in a legal battle with the United States government for refusing to show their bank records.

Clinton also tried to keep her campaign off the name of the organizations who funded the dossier. Studies by Mother Jones indicate that talk of the dossier had been around ever since October 2016, on which it was very vaguely put that the effort was “originally funded by Trump’s GOP opponents.” When it emerged in October 2017 that a very significant benefactor had, in fact, been the Clinton campaign, the dossier had already sparked much of the media’s attention. Clinton’s involvement was often de-emphasized by media trying to push a narrative that antagonized Trump.

But these sort of unethical tactics stretch all the way back to Clinton’s time with the Obama administration. From 2009 to 2013, Russia was trying to monopolize the uranium market by gaining control of a substantial amount of all uranium production capacity on American territory. Since uranium purchases have implications on national security, they must be approved by a committee composed of representatives from the United States government. Amongst those representatives was the Secretary of State at the time, Hillary Clinton.

As Russians gradually assumed control of uranium production, Canadian records showed that an unprecedented cash flow made its way into the Clintons’s pockets. The chairman of Uranium One made four separate donations to the Clinton Foundation, totalling a whopping $2.35 million. Despite an agreement struck with the Obama administration to publicly identify all donors, this information remained disclosed until now.

Trump’s connections to Russia, in contrast, appear rather mild. His son, Donald J. Trump, met with a Russian lawyer during the heat of the campaign season. Other than a rather inconclusive e-mail and some false claims of the lawyer having access to “damaging information about Clinton,” the meeting was arguably none other than poorly handled opposition research. The lawyer ultimately didn’t provide the promised material on Clinton, and Trump Jr. fully disclosed the e-mails in a later tweet.

Even though this event was what began the Trump-Russia controversy, Trump’s campaign (and his presidency) was marred by many such dubious accusations. National Secretary Advisor Flynn—who has since been fired—was said to have communicated with Russian officials; however, the president wasn’t aware of nor directed any of the efforts Flynn potentially made. Even Trump’s meeting with Putin to simply discuss American-Russian relations at the G-20 summit was used as viable evidence of an unseemly alliance. According to “The Atlantic,” accounts from the meeting state, “Trump had pressed Putin hard about Russian interference.” The rest of the time was dedicated to talks of resolution for the conflict in Syria.

Trump’s administration is forced to spend time defending themselves against allegations, which can be better used to defend the country. Clinton’s goal was never to warn the American people of Russian collusion, which she’s been building up as the biggest threat to American democracy, and a force that shouldn’t be reckoned with. But maybe the biggest manifestation of this sort of corruption is Clinton herself; after all, she got herself more profit and Trump more bad publicity than ever before.

Months after the controversy, media outlets have exhausted the topic of Russian intervention in the election. Speculation concerning the “Russia scandal” has taken up an incredulous amount of their attention; in one airing of CNN’s “New Day,” 93 percent of air time was devoted to Russia and less than five percent was spent on the GOP’s new healthcare bill. This misdirected focus allows for the neglection of arguably larger issues afflicting our nation. Between some flimsy links and a suspicious e-mail exchange, there appears to be nothing of substance in regards to the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russia—that alone should have been very clear months ago.